


More Than One Odysseus

by Freudhood, mcicioni



Category: Black Sails
Genre: A few animals killed (for food, Canon-Compliant, M/M, Not TI-compliant, not in sport)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-01
Updated: 2018-06-01
Packaged: 2019-05-16 20:21:31
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 16,062
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14818221
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Freudhood/pseuds/Freudhood, https://archiveofourown.org/users/mcicioni/pseuds/mcicioni
Summary: Reunion fic, about two years after 4.10. Quite a lot of talking and a little of the following: fishing, sex, hunting, bathtubs, Jewish surnames, books, stories, and Terra Australis.





	1. A Sack of Black Stones

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Story by mcicioni. Artwork by Freudhood.

_So, therefore, about what I remember_  
And about what I have no memory of,  
About what I know and what I knew,  
About what I lost along the way  
Among so many things lost,  
About the dead who did not hear me  
And who perhaps wanted to see me,  
Better if you don’t ask me anything:  
Touch here, on my vest,  
And you’ll see throbbing inside me  
A sack of dark stones. 

Pablo Neruda, “No me pregunten” (“Do Not Ask Me”)

 

The door of the tavern is half open. It’s mid-morning, almost all the tables are empty. Silver goes to the table in the corner, sits on a chair, balances his crutch on a stool, and wipes sweat and dust from his face. The invisible sack of black stones stays on his back; it’s been there for over two years.

He looks around, at the bar, at the barrels stacked in the far corner, at the few plants in baskets hanging from the ceiling, at the scruffy, relaxed patrons, one of whom is stretched out on a bench, snoring. Not unlike Eleanor Guthrie’s tavern, in another life. Not unlike the tavern in Spitalfields where he ran errands and picked pockets, in yet another life.

“What’s your pleasure?”

Silver sighs and turns. A large middle-aged woman is standing beside him, close to the stool with his crutch. 

_Information._ “Ale and some bread and cheese, if I may.” Food and drink arrive quickly, and the tankard and the plate are clean. Silver smiles thanks, putting a little extra warmth in the smile.

The woman smiles back, professionally helpful. “Do you need a room? You look tired.”

“I’m not sure,” Silver replies. He pauses for a moment. “I might be staying with two friends who live not far from town, in a cabin on Morgan Hill.” _But I know that one of them left a few months ago, and hasn’t returned._ He shifts on his chair, and his stump bumps against the end of the crutch, which clatters on the floor. Silver bends down to pick it up, with a few unnecessary stretches and small grunts.

“That’s right. Halfway up the hill.” She casts a concerned look at Silver’s stump, helps him retrieve his crutch and nods compassionately at his bashful smile of thanks.

“They’re known as McGraw,” he adds quietly.

She looks at him more closely, the compassion in her eyes beginning to be replaced by wariness. She turns her back on him and goes towards the bar; that’s all he’s going to get out of her. Silver takes a few sips of ale and chews on a bit of bread and cheese, it’s not bad but he finds it difficult to get down. He leaves most of the food on the plate, rubs his eyes and slouches in his chair: he’s tired, and the sack of stones gets heavier every day. Half of him wants to be in front of that cabin, knocking on that door, the other half wishes he were somewhere else, anywhere else.

“Please forgive me. I heard you asking about the McGraws,” a polite voice says behind him. Silver half-turns. The man is tall, spare, white-haired, probably sixty or older; he stretches out a hand. “Hendrik Daalmans. I live not far from here, a little way up Morgan Hill.” 

Silver shakes the hand: “Solomon Little.” Daalmans’ clothes are not new, but they’re too good for a farmer, and his English is perfect, with just a slight foreign lilt to his voice. A retired scholar? A merchant? And why is he casting surreptitious glances at his crutch? Silver narrows his eyes, fully aware of the need for caution. On the other hand, they’re in the Blue Ridge Mountains, not in Nassau or Savannah, and in his previous life the worst enemies were not Dutch. He points to the chair opposite his and asks, “Do you know the McGraws?”

“Not well. They said they were cousins. Intelligent, educated men. But only one of them lives here now, the other one left.”

_That’s why I’m here._ Silver stares into space until Daalmans’ voice jolts him from his reflections.

“Would you like me to show you where they live?”

Silver shakes his head. The questions going round and round in his mind cannot be spoken out aloud, especially not to this foreigner, who probably knows more than he is letting on. 

“Thank you. I’d better make my way there before it gets too dark.”

“It’s not a hard walk,” Daalmans says encouragingly, with another peep at Silver’s crutch. "Have a good night, Mr Little.”

Silver smiles, gets up as quickly as he can, leaves a couple of coins on the table and leaves.

It’s mid-March, it’s cold at the foot of the Blue Ridge Mountains, and grey clouds are gathering above the top of the trees, harbingers of rain to come. The path from the tavern to the top of the hill is narrow, steep but manageable. A few timid buds are beginning to show on tree branches, and the sides of the road are brightened by the pink of redbuds and the red splashes of dogwoods. The ground is only half-thawed, and farmers have just started breaking it up in preparation for planting. Silver doesn’t stop to admire the colours and the view: he has caught a glimpse of a roof among the treetops and keeps pushing himself towards it, sweat trickling down his sides and making his shirt stick to his back in spite of the cold.

His movements become heavier and slower as he gets closer to the log cabin, and he eventually stops a short distance from it. It’s a small place, neat, with a well-tended vegetable patch beside it and a wooden bench that faces away from the cabin, towards the top of the hill. Flint is sitting on the bench, hands lightly resting on either side of his hips, back very straight. His hair is longer, the once fiery red fading and streaked with grey. Silver takes another couple of steps forward and stops again, barely able to breathe.

“Your days of approaching unannounced are behind you,” Flint says without turning. His voice is flat, no tone or pitch to it. And yet, his first words to Silver are words each of them said to the other, once, when they were partners. Not much of a greeting, and what’s behind it is anybody’s guess; but still, it’s a greeting, not a curse or a threat or an order to fuck off.

What comes next is equally soft, equally flat, and inescapable. “Why are you here?”

There are several possible answers, all have some truth in them, none of them is right. And now it’s not the right time for any of them. “We make mistakes and we pay for them,” Silver says, knowing that it’s too fucking general and vague. “And we’re lonely, and then we die.”

Flint half turns, without getting up. The scars of past fights are there, on his forehead, on the bridge of his nose, under an eye. His eyes are still hooded, his cheeks are gaunt. There are more horizontal lines on his forehead, and deeper creases at the corners of his mouth. But his clothes are clean and mended, and his hair and beard are neatly trimmed. No bruises or traces of blood on his knuckles, and only one ring, on his right hand.

“Spare me,” he says coldly, without raising his voice.

Silver would prefer rage, shouting, threats, which were a daily occurrence in the time they were together, or even Flint hitting him, which never happened. Any of these would be better than this emptiness, this door that will probably remain closed. But it’s up to him to keep trying to open it.

“You start with a fact,” he says, and it’s still fucking general and vague, but it’s the best he can do for the moment. “And then you work it over, like you would with a piece of steel that’ll eventually become a knife, or a sword. You forge it.You hammer it. You file it. You grind it. You polish it. And you’ve got a story.” 

He looks at the two deep vertical lines that seem to be permanently resident between Flint’s eyebrows, sees Flint’s unspoken expectation that he’ll either lie or deflect questions, like he had that day on the cliffs of Maroon Island: _You know of me all I can bear to be known, all that is relevant to be known._ He closes his eyes, reopens them, steels himself, and speaks.

“So. Fact. My mother’s name was Sara Milano.”

Flint starts, narrows his eyes, then stares into Silver’s face for a long time, and finally his body relaxes a little. “Go on.” 

Silver lets out a slow breath. “Fact. Sephardi Jews passed through many towns and cities in France and Italy after they were expelled from Spain. They had to have last names, so many of them took their names from those places.”

Flint nods, without taking his eyes from Silver’s face.

“My mother and her family lived in Bologna, in the North. I don’t know how she met my father. He was a student of anatomy, the Jewish ghetto’s near the university. He was an Englishman, his name was Edward Little. When they eloped, her family mourned her for seven days, as if she was dead.” A pause. “That’s what my father told me anyway. Of my mother I hardly remember anything. When I was three years old, there was a typhoid epidemic in Bologna, and it took her.”

“Solomon Little. A foot in both camps. So at least that much was true,” Flint half-sighs, surveying him, frowning a little at the way he’s leaning heavily on his crutch. He shifts on the seat and jerks his head towards the empty space beside him. “Sit down.”

Silver complies, more awkwardly than he would have liked, but the day has been long and not all that easy. He looks at his hands, resting on his thighs, and does not speak for a while.

“You grew up in Italy,” Flint says slowly.

“No. After my mother died, my father tried to contact her family, but they didn’t want to see him, or me. Even though theoretically I was one of them. So my father took me back to London, to live with his family.” He keeps his eyes fixed on his hands. “ It … didn’t work out well. I didn’t fit in.” This is all Flint needs to know. “I ran away when I was thirteen.”

Flint keeps looking at him closely. Silver shrugs. “Not all that hard for a boy to survive in the East End. One way or another.” The details can stay in the sack of black stones. “And I met other Jews there, from the East. They were told that they had to have last names, so instead of names of towns, some of them chose names of jewels, precious things,” _and transportable, like Max’s jewels._ “Perlman. Goldschmied, you can guess.” A pause. “Silverstein.”

Flint gives him a small nod. “John Silver. A foot in both camps.”

“They didn’t like me all that much either, but I made myself useful. And I learned three things from them. One, you’re only safe with your own people. Which in my own case was something of a problem.” He half-grins. “Two, when your own people are outsiders, adapt as much as you can to the people you’re with. Become indispensable. And at the same time learn the languages and customs of the neighbouring countries, because you never know when the people you’re with will turn against you. Three, above all, always reveal as little of yourself as you can get away with.”

They are quiet for a while. There’s an arm’s length between them, but each of them can hear the other breathing.

_Believe what I’ve given you. It isn’t much, but it’s what happened._ Silver cannot say this, so instead he asks, “Is this a more believable story?”

The silence stretches. Flint is still half-turned towards Silver, and his voice is still flat.

“You came all the way here to tell it. After two years. So yes, I’ll choose to believe it.”

_He doesn’t believe it._ The sack of black stones suddenly becomes a weight that may crush Silver’s back. But Flint hasn’t said _too late_ , and he has said that he chooses to believe it. Maybe he wants it to be true. More words are needed, but he can’t find any.

“Did you ever say any of this to Madi?”

Madi. The heaviest stone he must carry. He shakes his head and stares at the grass around his feet. Their last encounter, the words that had killed all his hopes for understanding and forgiveness.

“Leave this island.” Her voice had been firm although her eyes were brimming with tears. “We care for each other, but nothing can come out of it. I must answer to my people, and you no longer belong with us. Hoping otherwise will just break your heart, as it is breaking mine. Go. Find other hopes and other people, and find ways not to let them down.”

A long pause. Flint breaks it. “She didn’t forgive you.”

“No. She couldn’t.” He had done what he believed was right. But what a long wake of pain, betrayal and death he had left behind.

Of course Flint’s still his fucking unrelenting self. “You haven’t answered my question. Why did you come here?” His eyes follow every movement in Silver’s face and body, to catch any clues of untruth. “Did you know I was alone here?”

No point in obfuscating. “Yes.” He shifts on the hard seat. “I still have informants.” He picks up a stalk of grass, looks at it, then drops it. “But informants just report facts, not stories. Two men broke out of the Savannah prison farm. Two men bought a log cabin at the foot of the Blue Ridge Mountains. One of them left.” Words are beginning to come back to him slowly, a few at a time. “I came here because I want to ask what the relation is between those facts. The story.” The next words are the hardest to pull out, but he manages. “And because in my life there hasn’t been much of a story for two years.”

“Stories.” Flint’s old trick of repeating something someone said right back at them, to make them wonder whether they’d been caught lying, or whether they’d said something incredibly stupid.

“Yes,” Silver says. “I stopped having a story two years ago.” He remembers the forest on Skeleton Island, Flint’s ruthless smile, the cold fury in his eyes, the words meant to cut deep: _When you’re casting about in the dark for some proof that you mattered and finding none, you’ll know that you gave it away in this moment, on this island._ And now, here, there are two possibilities. Flint may tell him that he is not interested in discussing stories, and send him away. Or Flint may say that he no longer hates him, and talk to him. Silver has always been good at finding third possibilities, but this time he cannot see one anywhere.

He waits.

Without warning, small cold drops of rain start falling. Silver feels them on his shoulders, smells them sinking into the earth around them, and he would like to throw his head back and breathe deeply, but his body is stiff and his chest is tight.

Flint stands up, but remains next to the bench, one hand resting on the back. He’s grown stockier, his dark-green cotton shirt is tight across his stomach; Silver gives a fleeting thought to the lines on his own forehead and the grey hairs beginning to show in his own dark mane. The rain gets a little heavier. Neither speaks.

Silver shivers, gives in and breaks the silence, very quietly. “Want me to go?”

Flint is standing completely still, except for a twitch in the hand on the back of the bench. “Suit yourself.”

_You fucking arsehole._ Silver remains seated, without moving. It’s raining steadily now, they’re both drenched and chilled, the earth under Silver’s foot is turning to mud. Flint sighs deeply and moves towards the house, muttering “Come on” over his shoulder.

The inside of the cabin is neat and spare, two windows on opposite walls, a fireplace. No ornaments, a couple of skillets hanging on a wall, a pine bookcase packed with books and nautical charts ( _nautical charts?_ This place is two hundred miles from the ocean), a chaise-longue under one window. Opposite the main door there’s a small archway, and beyond it there’s a small kitchen with a narrow staircase which presumably leads to a bedroom. 

They stand in the middle of the room, dripping on the floor, not looking at each other.

Flint stirs the embers of the fireplace back to life. “I didn’t ask you to come. But since you’re here, we’ve got things we have to say to each other. Then you can leave whenever you want to,” he says, without turning.

_You taught me how to parry sword blows. And I taught you how to deflect questions._ “All right. But tonight I’m dead on my feet.” He needs to be rested and self-possessed for what is to come. For a moment he considers playing up his leg, but it would be a cheap trick. Flint wouldn’t fall for it anyway. “I’ll go back to the tavern if that’s easier.”

“Don’t be an idiot.”

“Since …”

“Don’t be a fucking idiot.” A beat. “Want anything to eat?” 

“I ate at the tavern.” It’s easy to lie about small things after getting a few true facts out. Silver takes a couple of steps towards the chaise longue. “All I need is a blanket. And directions to the outhouse.”

Flint gives him a short nod, goes upstairs, returns with a blanket and a pillow. “Back door’s by the stairs, outhouse is at the bottom of the yard.”

The blanket is soft wool; it doesn’t smell much of anything. Silver takes off his wet clothes, wraps the blanket around himself, and closes his eyes. He’ll never know which of them laid his head on that pillow, and what they said and did before they went to sleep.


	2. Two Fishing Rods

A hand shakes his bare shoulder, hard, and Silver opens his eyes, blinks, and remembers where he is. The sky is still dark, just beginning to turn grey. Flint is standing over him, frowning, and it’s such a familiar sight that the sack of stones on Silver’s back instantly feels a little lighter.

“Fact,” Flint says shortly. “There’s very little to eat around here. So the possible narratives are: either we say what we have to say on an empty stomach, or you get up and we go catch our lunch.” His tone is vaguely threatening, but there’s a small mocking light flickering behind his eyes. Silver makes a vague noise of agreement, but doesn’t move.

“Up,” Flint snaps. His hand lifts from Silver’s shoulder, drops back down, and Silver continues to feel its weight and warmth for a couple of seconds. Flint turns and heads for the kitchen, letting Silver have some privacy to disentangle himself from the blanket and get dressed. 

In the morning Silver usually remembers that his body is thirty-five years old and has experienced amputation, near-drowning, and innumerable punches and kicks. His joints ache, his right leg is stiff, and there is burning and itching where his left calf and ankle used to be. But this morning there’s less discomfort, and he can breathe deeply to draw the cool mountain air into his lungs. Is this what pleasure’s going to be now and in the future – merely the absence of pain and a slight lightening of the weight on his back?

By the time Silver is ready, Flint has made a pot of tea and found some bread and fruit. It’s strange to be sitting opposite each other in the uncertain dawn light, breaking bread together, without having any plans or strategies to discuss. 

“You didn’t use to talk in your sleep,” Flint says abruptly.

 _And you paced up and down over my head half the night._ “Oh.” Talking in his sleep is something that must have developed in the past two years. Of course he fucked a few people since Madi sent him away, but he never actually slept and woke up beside any of them. He doesn’t want to ask what, if anything, Flint heard him say; a change of topic seems to be the best option.

“Catch our lunch, you said?” he asks, warily.

“Trout, not sharks. There’s a pond about a mile from here.”

Fishing rods, bait and suchlike are totally unfamiliar notions, but he has survived torture, starvation, a ship-killer storm, pirate hunters and the goddamn British navy, and has learned to roast pigs, to get nimble on one foot and one crutch, and to use a sword halfway decently. He can learn to fish if he has to. “Lead on, Captain.” He hides his pleasure at Flint’s instant glower.

The path is not steep; Flint strides ahead, carrying a bucket of odds and ends and two rods. Two: he and Thomas Hamilton went fishing together. But Hamilton has gone – when, why and for how long, Silver is going to find out soon. Silver hops along in Flint’s wake, watching where he steps and ignoring the occasional moments when Flint slows down and glances backwards. 

There are bushes by the side of the path, and they’re pale grey-green in the dawn light. Flint stops next to one and plucks a handful of red berries: “Wild raspberries,” he says, holding his hand out. He sees Silver’s suspicious expression and rolls his eyes. “As if,” he snorts. He brings his hand to his mouth, swallows half of the berries and sticks his hand out again. “Here.”

For a second Silver sees himself pressing Flint’s hand to his mouth and tasting the berries, the wet traces from Flint’s lips, his juice-stained fingers. He draws in breath, mumbles thanks and takes the remaining berries with his fingertips. They taste sharp and ripe; he feels a smile coming as Flint turns his back on him and walks on.

By the time they get to the pond the sun has fully risen, but it’s still cold. It’s a peaceful spot, rocky on one side, with a small waterfall tumbling down at one end. At the other end there’s a stream, and the water in between is so still that Silver can see green, red and purple reflections of trees and flowers in it.

Flint crosses the stream in two strides, then stops and turns around, but says nothing. Silver is careful to wedge the tip of his crutch safely between two stones, then easily hops across and stops a little away from Flint.

He hears a hiss: something green and yellow is slithering through the wet grass, towards a rotting log. “Snakes?” he asks calmly.

“That was a garter snake, water snakes won’t attack people. There are rattlers and copperheads in the hills.”

Silver raises his eyebrows at the thought of a weathered sailor like Flint being knowledgeable about freshwater and snakes. He pushes away the thought of whether Hamilton also learned to live with outhouses, snakes and uncobbled paths and focuses on the tasks of the moment: catching trout and waiting for what will happen afterwards.

“We’ll stand here, near the stream,” Flint informs him in a whisper. “The other side’s too shallow to fish at this time of day. We would be seen and scare the fish. This side, the fish swim close to the bank, so we don’t need to cast far. You can lean against that tree if you get tired.”

He squats down, takes two small lead weights out of the bucket and ties them near the end of the lines, then secures two hooks to the ends. He takes out a damp canvas bag full of garden dirt, sticks his fingers into it and pulls out a long, fat worm; he quickly sticks the tip of a hook into one end of the worm and a couple more times through the body, then repeats the operation with the other rod. He is as coolly matter-of-fact with these newly-acquired peacetime skills as he was when he was teaching him how to fight and not die. Does he ever miss the old skills, the _how good it feels_ dark excitement of violence? 

Flint stands up, holding out a rod. “Over here,” he orders. “Hold it in your right hand, grip it close to the end, let the tip down a bit,” and for a moment his fingers cover Silver’s, and waves of excitement run up Silver’s back, it’s been so long since they touched in any way, “and hold the end of the line in your left hand.” His arm slides around Silver’s waist for a moment, to steady him, then lifts again. “Hold the line against the rod with your finger, you’re in control. Good. Now let go of the sinker and flick the line outwards.”

Flint’s a good teacher, whatever the lesson is about, fishing rods, sword fighting, or managing men. Silver feels another smile growing inside him as, crutch braced between armpit and ground, he lets the line fly in a grand, open-armed movement. The line winds around the tip of the rod and becomes an intricate tangle; Silver finds himself nose-to-nose with the worm on the hook.

“Fuck.”

Flint gives him a look and waits in patient silence until the line is disentangled. “Again. A little flick is enough. From the wrist,” and they exchange a quick sideways glance. For a moment they’re both together in the sunshine of the cliff in Maroon Island, arguing about past, present and future, challenging each other, talking about closeness and trust. 

But it’s just a moment, it passes, and they’re back in North Carolina, and Long John Silver’s reputation is at stake. He flicks the line carefully, and it happily sinks, worm and all, below the surface. 

“Now we wait. Without speaking or moving, fish can sense if danger is nearby.”

They stand side by side, each concentrating on his line, the sun beginning to warm their faces and bodies. A couple of butterflies are chasing each other through the air; Silver absently follows the way they dip and rise, while most of his mind is churning. What may happen next. What, if anything, is left. What he can say. What he can’t. Whether there are any right words.

He jumps as his line tenses and there’s a sharp jerk. 

“Lift the tip of your rod, to set the hook in the fish’s mouth,” Flint whispers sharply. “One quick snap, wrist and elbow.” Silver complies, anticipation rippling through his chest and arms. 

“Good. Now lower the tip again and pull it in. Grab the rod with both hands and walk backwards. Slowly. Easy does it.”

Silver walks backwards and pulls, gently and steadily, and as the trout jumps into view Flint lets go of his rod and grabs it while it’s writhing around in the grass. It’s big, a couple of pounds at least, and it’s got teeth. Flint presses it down with one hand, and with the other gets a knife out of his belt and slashes its throat in one quick, precise stroke. He looks up at Silver and says drily, “Beginners’ luck.” But his eyes crinkle in a small smile, and Silver smiles back: this is not absence of pain, this is pure fucking pleasure, there’s nothing the two of them can’t do when they’re of the same mind.

Flint retrieves his rod, quickly casts, and waits. Silver baits his hook and does likewise. Nothing happens for a while, then something tugs at Flint’s line, and Flint deftly lands it, and it’s a large, angry bullfrog. Silver throws his head back and laughs until he’s out of breath. Flint looks darkly at both him and the frog, releases the frog and watches it jump back into the water and disappear. They look at each other. Silver gulps in some fresh air and laughs some more, and Flint laughs too, briefly, almost surprised, and the dimple in his left cheek appears for a moment, and it’s like a door being left ajar: he hasn’t seen that dimple for more than two years. 

“Let’s go,” Flint says briskly. “Your catch’ll easily feed us both.” He collects the rods, bucket and trout and sets off.

“No, wait,” Silver says. He hesitates a moment, but this is the right time. While there’s still a thread of comradeship between them. Before they go back to the cabin. Whatever the consequences. This is what he came here for. “Tell me your story.” 

Flint stops and turns around very slowly; laughter and dimple have disappeared, his eyes are dark, the muscles in his face tight.

“Are you ready for this conversation?” He pauses, unbends a little. “Wouldn’t it be easier if we went home, ate, and said goodbye?”

“No.” Silver braces himself on the crutch, leans against the tree trunk and levels his eyes at Flint. “I haven’t come all this way to pay a courtesy call.” He’ll listen and say nothing. He won’t defend himself if Flint wants to hit him. He takes a couple of deep breaths to control the pounding of his heart. “Talk to me.”


	3. You're Not the Only One Who's Lost Everything

Flint drops everything onto a patch of dry grass and stares at him. “Right,” he says, slowly, body straightening and stiffening, fingers twitching along his thighs. “So, what exactly would you like to know?”

_How you lived. What you remembered. Why he left. What made him leave. What his leaving did to you. If you ever thought of me. If you ever mentioned me. What you want now._ “What happened in the past two years.”

Flint stalks up into Silver’s face, invading his personal space like nobody else ever did before or after him, spitting out a low stream of words, all the more scathing because they are not shouted. “And what entitles you to ask? Our _bond of friendship_? Our _trust_ in each other?” His eyes are narrowed to slits, his nostrils are flaring. Silver straightens up against the tree: he’ll give Flint a fight if he needs one, but until that happens he’ll listen, he’ll try to understand.

“What the fuck do you _think_ happened? When you chained me up and delivered me to the farm in Savannah? Did you really fucking believe that there was going to be a happy end? That he and I’d wake up from the nightmare and pick up from where we’d left off ten years ago? Just like _that_?” He snaps his fingers, it’s like the sound of a whip cracking. “That I’d be James McGraw, idealism intact, no blood on his hands, head full of dreams of justice and equality, and just take it from there? That Thomas and I would hug and smile and cry and live happily ever after?” He stares hard at Silver for a long moment, shakes his head and moves a couple of steps around him.

Silver forgets his resolution to keep silent; he must be quick to parry and counterattack. “You believed it too. Or at least hoped,” he says, loudly and purposefully, to Flint’s stiff back. “Admit it. If you hadn’t, you’d never have surrendered to my plan. You’d have fought me and ten more like me. And overpowered us all.”

Neither speaks for a while. A couple of flies start hovering around the dead trout. Silver waves them away.

Flint turns and speaks, so quietly that Silver needs all his concentration to listen. “Yes. I had hopes,” he says. “So did Thomas. We hugged and cried. And felt loved and at peace. For a couple of minutes.” His mouth twists. “Of course he started asking questions. At once.”

The intensity of Flint’s tone sends cold shivers up and down Silver’s spine.

“He asked about Miranda straight away, moments after we had set eyes on each other. I just told him that she had been killed by Ashe’s right-hand man. I gave him as few details as I could, said that her death had been quick and painless, said nothing about the main square of Charles Town,” his jaw tightens, he can barely speak, his voice is low and rough,“but even that little knowledge shattered him. He could barely work, eat, speak. I had to get him out. Miranda would have wanted me to.”

Silver nods. 

“Breaking out of the farm was easy. They only had two armed men on night guard. I snapped the neck of the first one, took his weapons and cut the second one’s throat.” His eyes darken, the lines at the sides of his mouth deepen. “And that was the first time I saw it in Thomas’ face when he looked at me. Not contempt. Not revulsion. Fear.”

Silver just stares at him, not knowing what, if anything, Flint is seeing in _his_ face. It doesn’t matter anyway.

Flint takes a deep breath and continues. “Then we ran.”

“Ran where?”

“Thomas had helped with farm deliveries, knew the area and the people. He had spoken with an old lady who hated the farm and felt sorry for the prisoners. She hid us for the first few days and then sent us off to some friends of hers in North Carolina. Lettered people who had heard of the Levellers and believed in the rights of individuals. Didn’t take us long to settle here.”

A long silence. “And all the time he kept asking questions, and I kept evading them. I loved him, I wanted to spare him. Until one night he faced me and said that we could not have any life together if there were secrets and _unspoken deeds_ between us.” He closes his eyes when saying _unspoken deeds_ : they must have been Hamilton’s words. “He said that he loved me, that he would understand. That I had nothing to be forgiven for.”

Silver represses a cold shiver, even as his lost calf and ankle burn and throb. “Did you tell him everything at once?”

“No. Maybe I should have.” Flint moves a few steps away, paces aimlessly and turns back to Silver. “I told him a little at a time. After Miranda, I told him about Peter Ashe. And he held me, and cried with me. But sometimes in the days that followed he looked at me as if he didn’t know me anymore, and I saw myself through his eyes.”

Silver turns a bit more towards Flint. He will listen all day if necessary. This is the only thing that matters right now.

“And one night, he was going on about people’s responsibility to make the world better, and I started drinking. And after a while I told him about the Maria Aleyne. Miranda’s and my way of _making the world better_.”

Silver’s leg almost gives way under him. He slides down the tree trunk and clumsily sits down on top of a clump of roots. Flint is still standing, a few feet away, arms hanging at his sides.

“Thomas had no illusions about his father. He knew what he had done to the three of us. But knowing how he died, and the part Miranda had in it, undid him. He wept, he swore that he forgave Miranda and me, he swore that he loved me, but his body told another story.” Flint’s next words are low, subdued. “He never again touched me after that. And when I tried to touch him, he made an effort to respond, but couldn’t. We didn’t want to lose each other, after everything each of us had lived through. But loving each other wasn’t enough. Our life together became torture for both of us.”

“Lying was never an option, between the two of you,” Silver says slowly. 

“No. Even when he decided that he wanted to know more, and more, even if the knowledge poisoned him and us, I couldn’t lie to him.” He sighs deeply. “I told him about Singleton. Gates. The people I killed in the raids after Charles Town. The two deckhands who stole the food when we were lying becalmed.”

_If you’re not strong enough to do what needs to be done, then I’ll do it for you._ “Yes.”

Silver waits for the last name, Dooley – Flint’s right hand man after Silver became Long John. The name remains unsaid. Dooley is standing somewhere behind Silver, pistol aimed, waiting for Flint’s signal. 

“He couldn’t live with all those ghosts. For ten years, on that farm, he had been kept alive by the memory of James McGraw, and now even _that_ had been snatched away from him.” Flint looks into the distance, at the treetops becoming less distinct in the faint early evening mist. “One night, six months ago, we fought it out. No holds barred. We shouted at each other all night. At the end we held each other and cried. There was nothing left to say or do. The next morning, he left.”

A long silence. “He’s living in the Netherlands, in Groningen. Under another name. He knows people at the University, they’ve helped him settle. He has written to me twice.” Flint’s voice is quiet, resigned. “About politics, about books, about new ideas beginning to be discussed in Germany and France.” He crosses his arms. “He says we can still be friends.” A shrug. “With him over there, and me over here.”

“I’m sorry,” Silver says softly. He imagines what it would be like to meet some other gentle idealist and tell him that once he put his iron foot through another man’s face. And then add that it had been the right thing to do, at that time, in that place. No idealist – however intelligent, however open-minded, however loving – could possibly understand. And so much as look him in the face afterwards.

Flint crosses the distance between him and Silver in two long steps, his boots are nearly touching Silver’s leg. He glares down; Silver does not flinch. “You’re _sorry_. You don’t fucking know what sorry is. I drew strength from my memory of Thomas. His intelligence. His ethics. His goodness. He’d been through hell, but he still had those qualities when we met again. That’s why he left me.” Flint’s eyes are blazing, his hands are clenched into fists, and he’s shouting again. “You betrayed Madi and me on a fucking gamble, and lost us everything we had. You took my war from me, and gave me a false hope instead.”

Not all that hard to parry, painful as it is. “I’m sorry for you, not for what I did,” Silver snaps back. “I lost Madi. And I lost _you_ …”

Flint breathes harshly and lowers his eyes. Silver needs to press on. “ … and if I could go back I’d fucking do it all over again. Because I avoided a lot more blood being spilled. And because Madi’s alive, and so are you.”

Now he needs to advance and slide inside Flint’s guard. “And so am I. Because you may hate me, but you haven’t killed me.”

Flint steps back, disengaging. “I don’t hate you,” he says, flatly: it’s a fact. He looks away, and his voice is almost a whisper. “I could never hurt you.” Behind Silver, Dooley crashes to the ground, astonished horror in his eyes and Flint’s bullet in his chest. 

Silver stands agape, as stunned now as he was in the forest of Skeleton Island. Flint’s next words are just as flat, as final as his previous ones: “You’re right, I’m alive. But sometimes being alive isn’t enough. I have lost everything that mattered to me. There’s nothing I want, nothing I want to live for.”

It’s a searing wound, and Silver deserves it, because he should have foreseen it. _I don’t believe you_ , he wants to shout. _I don’t believe that there’s nothing you want. If that were true, you would’ve already put a bullet through your head._ But he chooses not to argue about this, not now: whatever is tearing at Flint’s soul, and at his own as he listens to Flint, needs silence as well as words. What _he_ needs to say, what he has come here to say, can wait. He leans against the tree trunk, leg stretched out, and watches the sun begin to turn red behind the waterfall. Flint has gone to stand at the edge of the pond and is looking at the shadows lengthening on the still surface of the water.

After a while, Flint turns and walks back to Silver. “Come on,” he says, holding out a hand. “Let’s move before it gets too dark. Get the fish.”

They walk side by side, in silence. The sun is low on the horizon. The butterflies have gone elsewhere, or they’re lurking in the deepening shadows. Frogs return one another’s calls in the distance.

 

“I’m hungry,” Silver says.

Flint gives him a quick sidelong glance, a small teasing spark briefly surfacing from the dark depths of weariness. “Tell me that in these two years you’ve learned how to cook. On second thoughts no, don’t tell me.” He bites his lower lip, mentally reviewing something. “There should be some carrots and spinach that the snails and bugs haven’t eaten yet. And there’s some bread left somewhere.” 

By the time they sit down to eat, the sky has changed from purple to dark blue, and the air has cooled. They pass the platters back and forth in silence: Flint seems to have run out of words, and Silver’s memories of the meals and talks with Madi are old heavy stones on his back. And his stump is aching, and there are beginning to be cramps where his leg and calf used to be.

After they have eaten, Flint leans back in his chair and looks Silver over. “Now. You haven’t yet told me why you’re here. Surely not to give me some bits of information about Jewish surnames.”

Just a sharp tap on his shoulder with the back of the blade. Silver nods acknowledgement and tries to ignore his physical discomfort and land his own touch. “If there’s nothing you want, _surely_ ,” he successfully steals Flint’s repetition trick, “there’s nothing you want to know about me.” 

A sudden spasm in his thigh makes his breath catch in his throat. He tries to unobtrusively shift on his chair, but Flint scowls at him: “How long’s it been bothering you?”

“What?”

“Don’t fucking insult my intelligence. And you _are_ going to tell me your story tomorrow. Now,” he stabs a finger towards the chaise-longue, “get some sleep.”

He gets up, locates a jug of rum and two pewter mugs, pours two large drinks and pushes one mug across the table. “This’ll help you,” he says, but the way he downs his own drink suggests that he may have had a different pronoun in mind.

“Call out if you …” he starts, but does not finish, and heads for the stairs. “Goodnight,” he mutters over his shoulder.

“You’re not the only one who has lost nearly everything,” Silver says to Flint’s back, softly, but not so softly that he won’t be able to hear. “But I thought I did have something to return to. Something worth fighting for. Maybe that was another delusion.”


	4. No Daylight Between You and I

Silver wakes up shivering. In his sleep, he must have shaken off his blanket; it’s on the floor, with the pillow. Next to Flint’s feet: Flint is sprawled in a chair at the other end of the chaise-longue, rolling out some stiffness in his back and shoulders. How long has he been there?

Silver shakes his head. “You spent the night here? Afraid I’d come upstairs and murder you in your sleep?”

“Only a couple of hours,” Flint says shortly, folding the blanket, then adds, “You talked about Dobbs. And Dufresne. And Muldoon.” In his eyes there is concern, and more than a trace of fondness.

“Good morning to you too,” Silver snaps back, grabbing his crutch and sitting up. “Do I have time for a piss before you start questioning me?”

Flint gestures towards the back door. “Feel free. You could consider having a wash as well.”

When Silver re-enters, tidied up and less cranky, there is tea and bread on the table, and also a small pot of jam. “It should still be edible,” Flint mutters, concentrating on running his thumb across the blade of the kitchen knife he has just sharpened.

“I talked about Dobbs?” Silver queries around a mouthful of bread and jam. “I don’t feel bad about him. He accepted my orders, knew what the risks were.” His voice becomes quieter. “He died a good death.”

“A gamble that paid off. Because it was founded on facts, as opposed to illusions.” Flint stops, puts down his cup of tea, looks directly at Silver. “As was Dufresne. You know, I know, Dufresne knew. Yet, some facts can change you. Change the way you see yourself, for the rest of your life.”

He stands up, moves a few steps around the room and stops by the bookshelf. “But you don’t want to believe that the past leaves marks, do you.”

Silver closes his eyes, and he hears Flint talking of how to face things other than your opponent: _Your opponent’s wrist is from whence the attack is born, but it’s its past tense, from which it cannot separate itself. The end of the blade by the time it arrives is its present tense, which also cannot be denied._ He sees Muldoon, trapped under the cannon, water up to his neck, grasping Silver’s hand and anticipating death: _It shows you the places you’ve been. The people you’ve loved. They’re all there, waiting for you._ He sees Dufresne, on the floor of the tavern, his head a mass of crushed bone, gore and splinters of glass from his spectacles. He reopens his eyes and stands up, walks towards the door, leans against it; now he and Flint are facing each other across the room.

“Past and present and the reason why I’m here,” he says quietly. “You don’t have to ask again. I’ll tell you. But don’t interrupt. Just let me say my piece. What you believe is up to you.” _If there’s a god of smooth talking, he’d better get the hell over here, fast._

Flint crosses his arms, not taking his eyes off Silver’s face. “Go ahead.”

“I gave you a few facts about my parents. Hardly world-shattering, I grant you. But being neither one thing nor another is part of who I am.”

Flint strokes his beard. “One could choose to say _both/ and_ , instead of _neither/ nor_.”

“ _Don’t_ ,” Silver says sharply. “It’s my story.”

He hears his own words, reconsiders them. “As I tried to tell you once, until I met you my life wasn’t a story.” He lets a breath out; this is relatively easy ground. “It was a fucking sequence of facts without any real connection. I was a coward and a liar who happened to be aboard a ship, and stole a page from a cook because it looked valuable, and followed you around because my interests and yours happened to coincide.”

Flint doesn’t move a muscle. So far this is nothing new to him.

“And then, after I saved your life the first couple of times, the facts in my life started to, may I quote you, _matter_. Things didn’t just happen, my decisions shaped how they happened. My present and my future, and other people’s. There was coherence. Relevance. Meaning.”

Flint looks intently at him. Silver takes two wobbly steps towards the chaise-longue, lowers himself onto it, and adds:

“From helping you. Backing you. Protecting you.”

Arrogant bastard that he is, Flint laughs, but the dimple makes a brief appearance, and for a moment his eyes are warm. His arms, however, are still crossed on his chest. “So that’s why you turned up here? You heard I was alone, and came out of pity? Or some ludicrous idea of _protectiveness_?”

Silver slams his hand on the wooden armrest of the chaise-longue, regretting it at once. “No. Protectiveness was why I took you to Savannah.” He sees Flint’s face harden and tries to ignore it. “Because I hoped, I fucking hoped with all of myself, that there would be enough James McGraw left in James Flint to create a new man, who could live with the man he loved.”

He swallows. “It didn’t work out for you. And it didn’t work out for me either. From that day, my story just – unravelled. No more coherence, no more meaning. I just kept going up that fucking hill every day. Not expecting to see you ever again. Until Madi asked me to leave.” The Madi-shaped gap that will always be inside him, filled by the pain of not being with her, of never going to see her again. Those dark stones are a little lighter now. But they’ll never go away.

“Of course I went on living, without Madi, and without you. Details of what I did are irrelevant. All you need to know is that without Madi, my life was and is shit. And without you …”

The fucking god of smooth talking must be fast asleep, because Silver has almost run out of words, and this is the part he really fears. “Without you, my life is – unthinkable. And,” his voice gets thick, rough, “now I have a different hope. James McGraw loved Thomas Hamilton because they saw each other at their best. You and I have seen each other at our worst.” A long moment’s silence. “And we mean a lot to each other. Tell me I’m wrong.”

Flint takes a long, deep sigh and squares his shoulders. “You’re not wrong,” he says. “I thought about that hill nearly every day. Not just after Thomas left. Every day since the day you took me to Savannah.” There may be some tenderness in his voice, but it’s still the voice of the man on the bridge. He takes one step forward. “Be quiet and listen.” 

_Listen to what? More anger, more resentment, more reports of damage done? But he said “You’re not wrong”, what the fuck could he possibly …?_

“Thomas knew about you, your part in my life. The Spanish man-of-war. The Urca gold. The night in the cage. The day we killed the sharks. And Skeleton Island. All those facts that together became a history, a shared history.” There are different emotions chasing one another in his eyes, residual anger, resignation, regret and longing, and something warm and shining that Silver is afraid to label.. “And the night before he left, he said to me, _James McGraw was my truest love._ ” He lowers his eyes, his eyelashes veiling them for a silent moment. “And after that he said, _If Silver was brave enough to follow James Flint and ruthless enough to cross him, then he would be by far the best partner for you._ ” He looks straight at Silver. “Tell me _he_ was wrong.”

Half of Silver wants to laugh and, if he only could, jump up and dance. The other half is convinced that Flint is going to contradict both him and Thomas and send him back to a life of even greater emptiness and incoherence. He shakes off all thoughts, puts all the determination he can muster into his voice, says, “He was right,” picks up his crutch, gets up and takes a step towards Flint.

“As a pirate captain once said, we’re at our best when there is no daylight between you and I.” He takes another step. “Enough talking. _Show_ me.”

Flint puts his arms around Silver’s waist and pulls him close, and the distance between them disappears. They’re standing in the middle of the room, chest to chest, perfectly balanced against each other. Flint is smiling, a real smile, lips curving gently instead of being pulled over his teeth. “Yes,” he says, leaning forward, and presses his warm, dry lips against Silver’s, slowly and steadily.

  

_So there is something he wants. Whatever I am, whatever I am not, whatever I have done to him, he wants me._ Crutch safely tucked under an arm, he holds Flint tight against his body with the other and moves his lips and tongue over Flint’s mouth, over and over, licking and savouring, loving the way Flint’s breath is becoming more ragged. They break apart, look at each other, and for the first time he feels entitled to touch Flint’s face, and he does, claiming it a little at a time, the lines between the eyebrows – still there, but faint, almost invisible – the bags under his eyes, the veins on his neck. He reaches out and pulls at the strip of leather that ties Flint’s hair. It’s almost to his shoulders, clean and soft, and the grey streaks blend well with the copper. Silver brushes his thumb along Flint’s hairline, where it dips in a widow’s peak, lingering on where it recedes over his temples. 

“Yes, well,” Flint grumbles, going slightly pink around the ears. “I’m getting old.”

The god of smooth talking must have woken up, because he is suggesting all sorts of polite, flattering responses. He can just get fucked, this time honesty is the best possible option. “You know you’re handsome. Just as much at sixty as you were on the Walrus.”

Flint puts both hands around Silver’s neck, tilting his head back with his thumbs, slightly tightens the hold and glares into his eyes. “Forty-six.” He releases him and they kiss again, laughing. Flint kisses his forehead, his eyes, his cheekbones, and slowly runs a hand down Silver’s chest and waist, opens Silver’s trousers and palms his cock. “You’re not cut,” he whispers.

Silver shrugs. “Not christened either.” And he unfastens Flint’s trousers and drawers, pulls them down and cups the heavy balls in the thick bush of dark-red hair. He wants to be the first to pleasure the other: it’s not competition, it’s not atonement, he’s just desperate to see what James Flint is like when he’s aroused, when he’s coming. He wraps his fingers around Flint’s long, heavy cock, and looks up at Flint’s eyes, locked into his, unguarded; yes, this is what he fantasised about all these years, himself looking and touching and taking his pleasure from pleasuring Flint. He tightens his hold and runs his thumb over the damp slit, he could easily spend an hour just doing this, feeling Flint move and throb under his fingers, hearing Flint’s moans and grunts, happy to ignore how painfully hard he himself is, even happy to do all this in silence.

It doesn’t last long. After a few moments Flint tenses and gasps and spills in Silver’s hand; Silver caresses Flint’s softening flesh and looks up, hoping that his eyes and face are showing his joy and _yes_ , his fucking pride at having produced this explosive result. Instead, Flint’s face turns crimson, as he hastily tucks himself in and takes a few steps away from Silver, toward the window.

Dimly aware of what’s happening, Silver grabs his crutch and walks up to him, slides an arm around his waist, kisses his stiff neck. “I’m flattered,” he says, meaning every syllable.

And Flint turns, and his face is shuttered as he unsmilingly looks at Silver’s still erect cock. “I’ll give you flattered,” he says, and it almost sounds like a threat. He spits in his hand, takes hold of Silver and without a word starts administering fast, competent strokes. Silver stares at him, his stomach beginning to tie up in knots, but the feel of Flint’s calloused palm and fingers rubbing his cock is too powerful, and he stops wondering and just _feels_ , and thrusts wildly in the firm hold of Flint’s fingers, and his release is long and fierce and full of silent awe.

They look at each other, still standing in the middle of the room, panting and sticky and dishevelled.

“Sorry I didn’t last. It’s been a while,” Flint whispers, stretching his other hand out to ruffle Silver’s already tangled hair. Silver tucks himself in, wipes his hands on the back of his trousers, totters unsteadily to the nearest chair and sits down. He raises his eyes into Flint’s and says, “Don’t you dare apologise. I’ve wanted this for years.”

Flint goes into the kitchen, comes back with a jug of water and two glasses and hands one to Silver. “So have I,” he admits, sitting down and draining his glass in one long swallow.“Since the fencing lessons.”

“Earlier than that for me.” Silver drinks, looking at a few drops of water that are sliding down Flint’s neck. “Since you told me that you had fallen in love with another man. No, earlier still. Since the two of us captured the Spanish battleship.” He half-smiles: they didn’t take the ship entirely by themselves, but this is hardly the moment for precise accounts.

“All right,” and Flint laughs, briefly, and the dimple reappears for a moment, “I’ll come clean. I’ve been wanting to lay my hands on you since the day I caught you poisoning my crew with that raw pig.” 

“Lay your hands on me? As in, fucking me senseless, or beating me senseless?”

“Both. At the same time. Or consecutively. Whatever.” Flint stretches his legs under the table. He seems to have relaxed some – how much is still uncertain. 

Silver’s leg slides into the space between Flint’s legs and starts rubbing against one of Flint’s calves. Flint’s legs close around his and squeeze tightly; he’s smiling again, his eyes are crinkling at the corners. He leans back in his chair and looks Silver over. “Again?” he asks. “I can do better than I did earlier, if you’ll give me a few minutes.”

Silver grins and nods, and then glances at the stairs, and his grin subsides. They aren’t too steep, but he feels weak with apprehension at the prospect of what may happen after they climb them. Flint’s emotions at sharing a bed with someone so different from Thomas. Flint’s body withdrawing from greater intimacy. Flint turning away from him.

He doesn’t want to get up. He doesn’t want to remain seated. He doesn’t want to think.

He looks at the chaise-longue, then, pointedly, at Flint. “Hope it’s strong enough to take the weight of two men.”

Flint looks at the chaise-longue, then at Silver, and scowls. He sticks out a hand to help Silver up: amazing how even his small gestures can convey orders and brook no argument. “Shut up and come on.”


	5. Virtue and Knowledge

The thin curtains are fluttering in the hint of a breeze and letting in the late afternoon sun. Silver slowly drifts back to consciousness, bare skin feeling the unfamiliar softness of worn cotton sheets, smells of sweat and sex around him, and deep, regular breathing beside him.

Flint is propped up on an elbow, looking down at him. His body radiates warmth. Silver lifts a hand and trails his fingers over the rust-coloured hair on his tanned, scarred forearms. On the crescent tattoo on his right bicep. On the patched-up hole from Dufresne’s bullet, the slash from Singleton’s sword, the deeper slash from Teach’s cutlass.

“Did I talk and keep you awake?” _I had no visits from Dufresne and Muldoon. But I may have said something emotional. Revealing._

“No. You slept soundly.” A flicker of satisfied amusement over his deadpan expression. “You needed to rest and recover, after this afternoon.”

Silver snorts inelegantly, “And you didn’t.” He runs his foot up and down Flint’s calf. “Don’t _you_ ever rest?”

Flint’s voice is quiet. “I never sleep easily.” A small smile. “And on occasion I find that I don’t want to waste any time sleeping.”

“I approve of your priorities.” Silver flashes him a grin. “But I need to give you another fact about my present: I’m starving. And a fact about the past: we ate all of yesterday’s fish and nearly all the bread.”

“Get dressed, then. We’ll walk down to the tavern.”

It doesn’t take Flint long to splash water over his face and neck, slip his shirt over his head, put his drawers and trousers on, and tighten his belt. Silver gets out of bed, leans on his crutch and surveys the damages sustained in the last few hours: a bite mark at the junction of neck and shoulder, a smaller one near his right nipple, beard rash on his chest, stomach, groin and thighs, and bruises where Flint’s fingers pressed into his thighs and backside.

Flint quickly looks him over and actually chuckles, the shit. Silver glances at the single, albeit large, purple bruise on Flint’s neck and darkly plans retribution. He doesn’t think he has ever been happier.

 

An old woman has gone around the tavern lighting candles, which do little more than show the peeling plaster on the walls. A younger woman is moving from one empty table to another, emptying whatever ale is left in the tankards into a large jug: a common saving strategy, employed in most taverns. Flint, leaning back in his chair, seems quite at ease. He’s on nodding terms with the owner and most of the patrons, most of whom seem to be middle-aged and, if drunk, maudlin rather than rowdy.

“They know you, but leave you alone,” Silver comments, between mouthfuls of quite edible stew.

“What else would you expect?” 

Silver thinks it over, spoon poised in mid-air. “Not sure. Conversations about the weather, maybe. Discussions about fertilisers. Card games?” Flint glares, Silver swallows some more stew. Did Hamilton make more of an effort with the neighbours? Or did he and Flint keep themselves to themselves? “What _can_ one do in these unexciting rural surroundings?”

“Unexciting.” Flint does his irritating repetition routine again, looking coolly at Silver. If Silver ever settles down anywhere, he is going to buy a parrot and name it after Flint. Whether or not the original Flint is around.

“Well,” Silver leans forward a bit. “Growing vegetables. Fishing in the pond. Rubbing shoulders with the locals in the tavern, talking with the same people, in the same words I bet.” He empties his tankard. “Peace and quiet, day after day, month after month. I wonder why it hasn’t driven you mad yet.” 

“Nobody’s asking you to put up with it,” Flint snaps. 

“That’s not what I meant,” Silver snaps back, and they look at each other in sudden silence, the thought of the future beyond the next few days rising up between them. 

Flint rubs the back of his neck. “I didn’t come here on my own. We were both exhausted, and we thought that being in a quiet, _unexciting_ village, the opposite of what each of us had had until then, would help us heal. And rebuild.” 

Silver nods, hearing _we_ and _us_ , and everything else that has been left unsaid.

“And then I found myself alone, and I learned to enjoy it. And to enjoy silence. Even though at times silence … You know.” His face twists a bit, and Silver nods again, thinking of the pacing he heard above his head the first night, and of the people who visit _him_ when he’s asleep and sometimes when he’s awake. 

“I’ve seen too much. Done too much. Lost too much.” Flint rubs the fingers of one hand against the back of the other. “I’ve had it with battles. Allies and enemies.” _Trust_ and _betrayals_ are not mentioned aloud, but they’re right there as well. “Doing nothing but daily tasks is predictable and soothing. Planning nothing but what vegetables to plant and which books to order from travelling merchants has considerable appeal.” He gives Silver a long, level look. “To me at least.”

_For pride to be an issue between you and I, I think we’re plain past that._ Silver reaches over, takes Flint’s tankard and drinks what’s left in it. “I’m tired too. You and I have descended into the depths together. We have each lost people we loved. We …” this is a different _we_ , old and new together, to be spoken with great caution, “we have been apart. We need some quiet. But not forever. Not for the rest of our lives. It’s not enough.”

Flint stares at him wordlessly. Silver swallows and continues, his words flowing easily although unplanned and unrehearsed. 

“However.” He means it. May the god of smooth talking forgive him, but he means it. “If this life is what you really want, and if you want me to stay, I will stay.” He shrugs. “What the hell. I’ll learn to garden. And fish. Maybe even bake.”

Flint looks down, then measures him, eyebrows half furrowed, light and shadows chasing each other in his eyes. Silver waits.

“Even bake?” The dimple in Flint’s left cheek flashes briefly; he huffs out a breath and stands up. “Come on. Let’s go home.”

He leaves a few coins on the table, gets up and walks out, leaving Silver to deal with his chair, his crutch, and the whirlwind of disbelief, delight, and sheer fucking terror created by Flint’s last word. 

 

Evening is turning into night. The darkness around them is broken by points of light behind the open doors and uncurtained windows of the village. There are points of light above as well, and a half moon. Every now and then, as they climb up Morgan Hill towards Flint’s cabin, they can hear the lazy chirping of crickets.

They don’t talk; the silence is not uncomfortable, but not fully companionable either. Flint’s hands don’t have the hilt of a sword to rest on and are clasped behind his back, fingers clenching and unclenching. A few steps behind, Silver hobbles on easily enough, trying not to show any trace of the thoughts that are surging and crashing inside his head: what he’s afraid of, what he may need, what Flint may need. What he could give Flint: energy, curiosity, will to live. If he can get Flint to accept them, that is.

He stops dead in his tracks as two thoughts hit him almost at the same time. The first is: _There’s a book with a story in it that might be useful._ The second thought comes immediately afterwards: _Flint’s got that book, I saw it on his shelves._

He hops a little faster and catches up with Flint. Flint stops and turns towards him: they are almost chest to chest, close enough to feel each other’s breath.

“What?”

“Will you do something for me?”

“Depends. What is it?”

“Tell me about Odysseus and the oar.”

“What?” Flint repeats, half laughing and half frowning.

“Please. You told me once before, but I need to hear it again. There’s a reason why I’m asking.”

“You don’t say,” Flint scoffs, eyeing him warily, but he shrugs and relents. “Very well. Odysseus on his way back to Ithaca met a ghost. The ghost tells him that, once he gets home and slays all his enemies, he must do one last thing before he can rest.”

They’re walking side by side now, in and out of the dappled shadows on the dirt road, and their shoulders are brushing. The cabin isn’t far.

“He must pick up an oar and walk inland, and keep walking until someone mistakes that oar for a shovel. And that place would be the place where no man had ever been troubled by the sea.” He gives Silver a quick lopsided smile. “Happy now?”

Instead of answering, Silver drops his crutch, cups Flint’s face with both hands and kisses him long and deep, lips opening to take and suck Flint’s, thumbs smoothing the hidden dimple and the creases around his eyes. Flint returns the kiss, quick and hard and passionate, but immediately afterwards he breaks it, takes Silver by the shoulders and holds him at arm’s length, with his head slightly cocked. “And the point of all this was …?”

Silver laughs and takes a step closer to Flint. “Why are you asking?”

Flint slides his arms down to Silver’s waist and sighs deeply, in his familiar blend of fondness and annoyance. “Why do you always, unfailingly, answer a question with another fucking question?”

“The Jews I knew in London had an answer.” He withholds it, looking cheerfully unconcerned, until Flint gives in, with a long-suffering “What was it?” 

Silver quickly steps back, out of arm’s reach: “Why _shouldn’t_ I answer a question with another fucking question?” 

Flint huffs out a brief, grudging laugh. Silver grows serious. “There are many other stories; there is more than one Odysseus. The Odysseus who listened to the song of the Syrens without allowing them to lure him and his crew to their deaths. The Odysseus who defeated the man-eating Cyclops by telling him that his name was Nobody.”

“Someone else used that strategy. _I am no one. From nowhere. Belonging to nothing._ While all the time planning on defeating me.”

Shit, Silver handed Flint a weapon, of course Flint used it. “I know.” _And I’ll wait a day, a month, a year, the rest of my fucking life for you to fully forgive me. We have plenty of time._

“Can we go back to Odysseus? What I was getting at is that there’s yet another story about him. Another Odysseus. I’m going to show him to you.”

 

It’s cold inside, and the place is less tidy than it was two days ago. Silver’s sack of belongings is standing in one corner, his coat is on the arm of the chaise-longue, and the breakfast dishes are still on the table.

Silver walks straight to the bookshelf and pulls the translation of Dante’s _Inferno_ out. He leafs through the pages until he finds the right place, not far from the end. “This Odysseus is in Hell, among the liars and deceivers.”

Flint shakes his head. “I don’t think I ever got that far.”

Silver hands him the book. “I’m going to bed. When you want to, you can let me know what you think.” He looks into Flint’s eyes, slightly narrowed but not too troubled. “No hurry. I can wait.”

 

He has been standing in front of the open window of the bedroom for a while, listening to the crickets and pondering about the power of stories. The power the teller grabs when he takes the story, changes some parts and passes it on to others. The power the story gives the listeners, when they realise what pieces of the teller are in it. He shifts his weight and leans on the crutch, trying not to dwell on the stories he told, the stories he spread.

He hears Flint’s steps coming up the stairs and waits, without speaking or turning around.

Two freckled arms enclose him from behind. Flint lays the book down on the windowsill and speaks against the nape of Silver’s neck. “ _My burning desire to gain experience of the world, of human evil, of human worth._ I used to have that, when I was in the Navy. And I got my wish.” A small sigh that moves through Silver’s hair. “Enough. Too much has been taken from me.”

“And there’s still much left,” Silver says, without turning. He bites his lip, desperately trying to remember Dante’s lines; he had learned them by heart in Italian when he was staying with a priest in Naples, fifteen years ago, in another life, irrelevant now. All that’s left of those lines are sparse fragments floating around in his mind; translating them into English is painfully difficult, but he goes ahead and tries for all he’s worth, because they fucking matter: “ _My companions and I were old and slow … Brothers, I said, now our senses are fading, our time is running short. Do not deny yourselves experience …_ ”

He tries to remember what comes next, but shit, he can’t, he just can’t. He gives up and grabs the book, finds the page, and just reads the written translation: 

_Consider ye the seed from which ye sprang;  
Ye were not made to live the life of brutes,  
But for pursuit of virtue and of knowledge._

“Please believe this,” he whispers.

Flint is quick to respond. “And what happens next? Odysseus pushes on, and dies for it and his crew with him.” He doesn’t let go of Silver, but sharply turns him around, so they’re facing each other. “Remember? God sends them a fucking whirlwind, the ship goes under, and he drowns with all his men, _until the sea above us closed again._ ”

They exchange a long look. Each of them can remember the moment the sea closed above his head, the complete aloneness of sinking deeper and deeper, the thought _This is the end. This is where I cease to exist._ But, unlike Odysseus, each made it back to the surface, Flint thanks to Silver, Silver thanks to his stubborn will to stay alive.

“If _we_ push on,” Silver says, stressing the pronoun, “no sea is going to close over us again.” His eyes hold Flint’s, pouring confidence and promises into them. “And if it ever should, I want to be right there, every single time, to fish you out.”

Flint raises both eyebrows, his eyes full of amusement and tenderness. He releases Silver and buries his hands in Silver’s hair, with a little sound of pleasure.

“All right. Don’t be too disappointed if it never happens.” He takes one step back, pulls his shirt over his head and starts unfastening his trousers. “Let’s get some sleep.”

It’s the first time they are undressing together, so different from the frantic way they tore off each other’s clothes in the afternoon. Silver glances around the room, and sees Thomas Hamilton standing where he is now, lying where he is about to lie down. He knows that Hamilton and Miranda and Madi will be sharing the room with them for a long time, maybe forever. But he and Flint are here now, together, learning how to be together; this is new experience, this is knowledge. And it requires courage, for both of them, so it’s fucking virtue as well.

Flint waits until Silver has made himself comfortable, then gets into bed and lies down on his side, fitting his longer body around Silver’s and wrapping an arm around Silver’s waist. Silver feels some evidence of Flint’s interest nestling against his buttocks, but it’s a languorous touch, tender rather than passionate. He reaches backwards with a hand, but feels Flint shake his head and tighten his arm around him before the straying hand is grabbed and tucked back into Silver’s chest.

Flint’s warm, rough palm smooths down Silver’s back. His voice is stern, but there’s a flicker of mirth in it. “Go the fuck to sleep, Silver.”


	6. Mapping the Future

“Come on, don’t take all day.”

Flint is in the outdoor bathtub, body relaxed, eyes closed, apparently unaware of the cool April breeze that covers Silver’s arms in goosepimples and hardens his nipples against his shirt. In the four weeks Silver has been here, the weather hasn’t improved all that much; when chilly winds rush through the tree tops or the rain turns the paths to streams of mud, Silver’s head starts filling with memories of bluer skies, long white beaches and tropical warmth.

With a deep sigh, Silver rubs soap on a cloth and washes Flint’s back, watching how the water trickles down Flint’s chest, among tufts of still-red hair and thousands of freckles. His fingertips trace a pattern of long, thin, old scars, fanning across the broad shoulders.

“You were flogged.”

“I was. As a seventeen-year-old midshipman. For insubordination.” Flint’s eyes remain closed. “Stop smirking. I’ve lost count of the times I should have had _you_ flogged.”

Silver gives him a small, unseen smile. His hand rubs the back of Flint’s neck, slows down and stops. He speaks casually, almost cheerfully. “Would this place sell easily? _If_ you ever decided that you wanted to move on.”

Flint turns around and gives Silver a long look. “If, and I mean _if_ , I ever were to be talked into going anywhere – and there would have to be a fucking good reason – this place would stay exactly as it is, because I’d be returning to it.”

Silver nods. “Ithaca.”

“Mm.” Flint stands up, water cascading down his neck, arms, stomach and legs. There’s just the suggestion of a wry grin on his face as he takes a towel and starts drying himself, noting the way Silver watches him, intense and temporarily speechless. “Did you draw more water? Your turn next.”

Flint scrubs Silver’s back energetically and efficiently, fingers occasionally straying to scratch the nape of Silver’s neck or pinch a nipple. Silver leans back with a little moan of contentment in spite of the cold, when Flint’s hands stop scrubbing and rest lightly on Silver’s shoulders.

“Why’d you ask about selling this place?”

Silver hesitates. What the hell, he may as well stick his neck out. “Homes, roots, that sort of thing. I think it’s easier without. Less trouble, less responsibility.”

Flint bends down, lifts Silver’s hair with one hand and gives a long, hard kiss to the back of his neck, while his other hand slides into the water and takes a firm hold of Silver’s cock. “Tether,” he says, a low, dark drawl, before starting to squeeze and tug.

 

Silver’s snare traps – some string, a sapling and a couple of lettuce leaves – have proved to be successful. While Flint is stirring the rabbit stew, Silver casts a sad peek at the thing lying under a cloth in the wooden bowl. It’s unrisen dough, and it’s looking about as appetising as a lump of whale carcass. He surreptitiously pokes it with a finger: it’s hard, unwieldy.

“Shit.”

Flint gives him and the bowl a sideways glance and shakes his head. “It didn’t rise because it wasn’t kneaded long enough. And you left it near a cold draught.”

“The other day it swelled up like a ball, because I’d put it too close to the oven,” Silver says, scratching his head. “Shall we agree that I haven’t got what it takes?”

“No. We’ll agree that you can try again tomorrow. Tonight we’ll boil a couple of potatoes instead.”

Silver understands Flint’s pointed look, gets a few potatoes out of the sack, sits down at the table and starts peeling. A few moments later his eyes light up and he drops the paring knife.

“You can write a book on the true history of piracy,” he says, slapping the table for emphasis. “The role played by Ashe and Rogers. Rogers should be easy, Jack Rackham made sure that all his deeds and misdeeds were recorded in his trial proceedings.”

“Beg pardon?”

“I heard someone say that a book can damage a nation more than a battle. The next generations will need an account of what really happened. You’ve got the scholarship,” Silver waves at the overflowing shelves, “and we can send for all the books you need. And we’ll write to Rackham if we need first-hand details. Especially the most horrible facts, like Teach’s keelhauling.” He gets up and gives Flint’s shoulder an encouraging pat. “Thomas Hamilton and his friends in the Netherlands could help you publish it.” 

“No.” Flint’s voice is final. “History is written by the winners. James Flint lost. He belongs in the dark.” He stares hard at Silver and lays a warning hand on his bare forearm. “Don’t mention this again.” His eyes soften, the tenderness as genuine as the determination, and his hand sketches a light caress on Silver’s skin. “Now. About those potatoes.”

 

It’s late April, and yet the dawn sky is cloudy and the air is crisp. A switch in his hand, Flint is stalking through the field, in a slow zig-zag between the brush on the edges and the cattails in the centre. He stops abruptly by a clump of shrubs, strikes it hard with his switch, and shouts, “Now!”

The shrubs explode with life, a covey of quail rising in a burst of feathers and veering in every direction. At the top of a small rise, Silver in one quick, fluid movement swings his musket around, chooses his target, and fires. A quail drops head first into the field; Flint picks it up, raises it to show Silver, and shouts, “Again.”

Once they have four birds they have a rest before the long walk back. The sun has come out, the air is warmer, it’s beginning to feel like spring. They sit in the shadow of a tree and share a bottle of water and some bread and cheese.

Next to Silver there’s a clump of peppermint plants. Silver crushes a leaf between thumb and forefinger, enjoying its sharp smell and oily feel. He offers a leaf to Flint, who chews it quietly.

“Good for sore muscles,” Silver says. “It also relieves vomiting.”

Flint raises an eyebrow. “And here I was, thinking you couldn’t tell thyme from rosemary.”

“Thyme is supposed to heighten courage,” Silver grins. “And lavender helps you sleep.” He regards his green-stained fingers and an idea begins to take shape in his mind. It’s a long shot, but sometimes long shots hit the mark.

“Flint. Listen. This is something we could do.”

“What?”

“Make and sell herb remedies. Salves and ointments. Rubs for aching joints,” this with a look at Flint’s shoulders, which, like his knees, are stiff and painful in the mornings. “I learned a bit from Howell, and the Maroon Island healer gave me a few tips as well.”

Flint bursts out laughing, a sudden, open laugh, full of genuine amusement rather than contempt or derision. Then he sees Silver’s face and stops.

“You were. Joking. I trust.” The fact that he isn’t even swearing is a measure of his astonishment.

“I fucking wasn’t,” Silver bridles.

“Sorry to disappoint you, Dr Silver.” Flint has recovered from the shock. “There’s no guarantee that the right herbs grow around here. And neither of us knows which herbs are to be steeped in oil, or spirit, or water. And you have no sense of smell to speak of, almost certainly have no idea of the right proportions of ingredients, and would quite probably burn the salves.”

Silver gives him a dirty look, but rethinks. “All right. We could make cordials, then. Better than opium tinctures and laudanum. When I was in London I saw shops near the wharves, where sailors from India and China gathered to smoke the hemp plant. We could find people who’d help us stock up, then steep the hemp in rum or wine and sugar, and we’d sell the syrup as a cure for insomnia, or melancholy.”

Flint shakes his head. “Maybe I’m getting too set in my ways. But I’m not going to start a new life as a merchant. Especially a merchant of stuff that addles your brain, like the hemp plant.” He stares Silver straight in the eyes. “I may go along with a plan that has a vague chance of success and usefulness. So far your plans have neither.”

And this from the man who dived alone into the ocean with a shoulder wound, planning to steal a ship. But he’s right. All these spur-of-the-moment ideas will get them exactly nowhere. What Silver needs is a strategy.

He gets up. “All right. Let’s at least see if we can find some wild thyme. For the quail.”

 

It’s a god-awful spring. It’s early May and it rains nearly every other day. When Silver is feeling frustrated, he looks at the collection of Flint’s maps, and wonders what possible use they can be now. Or he walks in the woods for a few hours, enjoying every moment of solitude, and also enjoying having somewhere to go back to. Or he goes off to the tavern and picks up some bits of gossip. Occasionally Hendrik Daalmans wanders in as well.

Flint is up on the roof, replacing damaged wooden shingles. At the foot of a ladder, shivering in a couple of woollen shirts, Silver is unenthusiastically performing the role of carpenter’s mate. 

“You need to get better clothes,” Flint remarks, passing two broken shingles down to Silver.

_I need a little help from the god of smooth talking._ Silver passes a new shingle up to Flint, who quickly slips it in place and nails it down. Discussing the future with Flint is like wandering into a forest with him, without any maps, and getting lost without being able to agree on a way out. 

He squints up at the pale blue sky and works out the approximate position of the sun behind the clouds. It’s about two o’clock. “South of the Equator it’s autumn, I bet that’s warmer there than here,” he muses aloud.

Flint, hammering nails into shingles, makes a vague noise of acknowledgement.

“Some Spaniards, a couple of hundred years back, started talking about a whole continent south of the Dutch East Indies. They called it Terra Australis.”

Flint stops hammering and starts looking down suspiciously.

“And years ago some Dutch ships explored the coasts of this new continent. And reported back.”

Flint climbs down the ladder and plants himself about half an inch away from Silver, hands on hips. He stares hard at Silver, jaw clenched. “Stop. This conversation ends right here.”

Silver knows when he can and when he can’t push. He squints at the sky again, and then at the dirt road. Just a little longer. “All right,” he says quickly. “Have you finished up there?”

Flint surveys him, opens his mouth to speak, decides not to ask questions. “Almost. Give me a few more nails and I’ll put more shingles in. Tomorrow we’ll start collecting straw and lime for the chinking.”

While Flint is busy on the roof, Silver looks down the road, and breathes a quiet sigh of relief. Daalmans is coming up the hill, at a steady pace, not at all short of breath – remarkable, for an elderly man.

Flint has seen him too. He gets down and lowers his voice: “What the fuck does _he_ want?” Silver shrugs indifferent ignorance. Flint continues, “He’s a neighbour, a Dutchman. We’ve played chess a couple of times.” He lowers his voice a little more. “Watch yourself; he’s rumoured to have been some sort of spy.” But when the guest steps onto his front path, Flint says formally, “What a pleasant surprise, _Mynheer_ Daalmans,” and offers tea, as befits polite neighbours.

They spend a few minutes chatting about the cold, rainy spring and its possible consequences for the crops, then Flint’s hands start to contract, and he starts playing with the single ring he’s wearing. Silver can reads these signs, and apparently Daalmans can too, because his pale blue eyes become serious, intense.

“I will come to the point of my visit, Mr McGraw,” he says. “I have been here a long time, but I have managed to keep in touch with friends in the Dutch Republic. Some of whom are close to our government.” He waits for questions. There aren’t any. “About twenty years ago, someone I knew of, called Willem de Vlamingh, made several voyages to explore an island as large as a continent, near our East Indies, known to us as New Holland.”

Flint’s eyes narrow, flicker over Silver and immediately turn away.

“De Vlamingh was enthusiastic about this land. He called it ‘pleasurable beyond all islands I have ever seen.’ He spoke of long sunny beaches, of fertile plains needing to be ploughed, of coasts full of fish. He also spoke of black swans, and of large animals that hop and carry their young in a pouch on their front.” 

Silver smiles, Flint frowns, but can’t help leaning a little towards Daalmans. “Black swans?”

“Yes. And small bears who live in trees and eat leaves.” Daalmans sighs a little. “But unfortunately De Vlamingh did not find any gold, which was the main reason why the government had sponsored him, so expeditions to New Holland stopped for twenty-five years. The last maps are over fifty years old.”

Silver looks at him, then at the dark spots on a few of the logs, then out of the window. Flint says nothing, but gets up and moves a few paces around the room. He glances at Silver, and his expression clearly says _You and I are going to settle this later_ ; then his eyes fall on the old rolled-up charts on his shelves and soften, and he rubs his chin and the back of his neck.

“The present government of the Dutch Republic has recently had second thoughts,” Daalmans says, carefully. “It would be a source of great pride if new Dutch expeditions were sent to map this new land. Without searching for gold. And without attempting to occupy the land and subdue the natives. Just to chart its coastlines and learn about its flora and fauna, in the interest of scientific knowledge.”

“We’re not Dutch,” Flint snaps. But his eyes are very green and very wide, and his breathing is a little faster. 

Daalmans smiles blandly. “I am aware of that. But the Dutch government would accept experts from other countries as naturalists and collaborators with the maps. A new expedition will be setting sail in about six weeks, at the end of June, from Norfolk. Two … retired Englishmen such as yourselves would have many skills to contribute.”

Flint rolls his eyes. “How did you come to know all this?”

Daalmans is unperturbed. “I have served my government in the New World. In many ways.”

“And how long will this voyage be?” Silver asks.

“About eighteen months. Six to get there, six to collect your information, six to return.” Daalmans stands up. “I hope that you will seriously consider this proposal. I need an answer in the next three days, so please talk it over between yourselves.”

“We will,” Flint says, with a dark look at Silver. Silver just nods formally. 

Flint shows Daalmans out, shuts the door behind him, and wheels around towards Silver. “Explain yourself,” he growls between clenched teeth. 

Silver raises both hands, palms forward, and easily parries the attack. “In case you forgot, you haven’t been my captain for over two years.” He’s quick to follow with a riposte. “All right, I may have heard something about Dutch explorers. And Daalmans and I may have talked once or twice before today. And we may have mentioned Terra Australis or New Holland or whatever else people call it.”

“I don’t fucking believe it.” The volume of Flint’s voice rises. “Back to your old tricks, doing things behind my back instead of asking me what I thought. As well as being out of your fucking mind, having friendly talks with a Dutch spy.” 

“Oh yeah, I should’ve consulted you, so that I could have been mocked, or dismissed and told to go peel potatoes.” Much as he’d like to shout back, Silver is careful to keep his own voice cool and level. “I’ll admit that some of my previous plans may have been a little impractical …” he totally ignores Flint’s muttered _harebrained_ , “but this one, this one is a good plan, James.” Both of them blink at the last word, but Silver doesn’t stop, this is vital. “Useful work, some of which may be dangerous, but that won’t involve cannons or sword-fighting. Sea voyages …”

“I thought you once said that you wanted freedom from water and ships.”

“I also said I wanted freedom from you, and here I am.” He stops abruptly: he has disclosed more than enough about himself. “And, hang on.” He takes his crutch, goes to the woodpile by the back door, extracts something carefully wrapped in a burlap sack and hands it to Flint. “Here. It’s in English, _A New Voyage Round the World_. By William Dampier.”

Flint takes the book out of the sack and stares at Silver. “Oh. Half of London talked about it ten years ago.” He leafs through it, his eyes a little unfocused. “I never read it, but Admiral Hennessey told me about it. And so did Thomas.” He examines an illustration, sits down at the table and begins to read hungrily, then lifts his eyes back to Silver. “Where the fuck’d you get it?”

“From Daalmans, what’d you think? He lent it to us.” The pronoun is deliberate, a risky but calculated move. Silver sits down, facing Flint, and waits.

Flint stares at one of the charts in the book. “Exploration is not pure search for knowledge,” he murmurs, more to himself than to Silver. “No knowledge is ever neutral. Maps help empires to claim rights to territories. And trade routes help empires strengthen themselves to wage more wars.” He looks up, face furrowed, eyes hooded, half angry and half lost. “And the natural sciences are the bait on the empires’ hooks.”

Silver is ready. “You’re probably right. So? What’s the alternative? Would we be opposing empires by staying put in this place?” He stretches a hand across the table towards Flint, his fingertips not quite touching Flint’s. “I said that I’ll be here with you to my dying day if that’s what you want, and I will. But what can we _do_ here?” He hold’s Flint’s eyes, unsmilingly. “As someone told me once, how can we wake up in the morning and matter?”

For a long time Flint remains quiet and motionless, then he covers Silver’s hand on the table with his own. “Touché,” he sighs. “Virtue and knowledge. Maybe some new knowledge can have uses that are acceptable.” He doesn’t appear fully convinced, but he may be willing to at least try.

Silver picks up his crutch and gets up: “Speaking of things that matter, have we finished with the roof?” _We_ is coming easily now, a light warm stone which he’ll carry together with the heavy black ones.

“Not quite.” Flint stands up, cups Silver’s jaw with one hand, pulls him close and gives him a quick, hard kiss. He jams the hammer into his belt and jerks his head towards the door. “Come on, before it starts raining.”

 

They are lying side by side, covered in sweat and seed. The curtains are pulled back; the sunset sky is streaked with pink and purple.

Flint’s breathing is soft and regular. Silver props himself up on an elbow to check, and finds himself staring into wide-open green eyes. 

“Oh.”

“Oh,” Flint mocks. Silver _will_ get that parrot, if it’s the last fucking thing he ever does. 

“What’s on your mind?” Flint’s hand runs up Silver’s chest, brushes his collarbone and rests lightly on his throat.

Silver could ask “What’s on yours?”, but with Flint’s hand where it is, maybe it wouldn’t be the wisest thing to do. He settles for the truth, some of it at least.

“We have lost so much time. But we still have enough.”

They don’t say anything else for a while, lying half on top of each other, comfortable in each other’s warmth. Whatever unspoken things, and whatever daylight, will always be between them hardly matter at all. They’re in Ithaca together. If temporarily. Silver’s sack of dark stones is heavy, but bearable.

“Black swans,” Flint says suddenly, intrigued. “Another New World,” he adds immediately afterwards, and now his voice is wary.

“And animals that carry their young in pouches.” Silver folds an arm behind his head. “The stories people’ll tell about us after we’re dead. Maybe more stories than all the tales about Odysseus.”

Flint makes a sound that’s not entirely agreement, and starts moving with slow determination against Silver’s thigh. “Let’s see what else we can do in here other than speculate, _partner_ ,” he says, voice low and rough on the last word, and grabs Silver’s other wrist and pulls his arm back, towards the headboard of the bed. 

Plenty of stories, with barely a shred of truth in any of them. Part of history nevertheless. And Captain Flint and Long John Silver will be together in all of them. Silver can live with that.

“Let’s see indeed,” he laughs, breaking Flint’s hold and rising up to take his lips.

**Author's Note:**

> Many thanks to everyone who contributed to this story, particularly Sybilius, for suggestions and encouragement, and Graeme, who told me about stillwater fishing.
> 
> Links to Freudhood's amazing pictures and gifs  
> http://freudhood.tumblr.com/post/174470328043/more-than-one-odysseus-portraits-of-john-silver  
> http://freudhood.tumblr.com/post/174462984118/more-than-one-odysseus-you-taught-me-how-to-parry  
> http://freudhood.tumblr.com/post/174467368478/more-than-one-odysseus-thomas-knew-about-you  
> http://freudhood.tumblr.com/post/174465163013/more-than-one-odysseus-reunion-fic-about-two
> 
> I have taken a few liberties with chronology, because the first English translation of Dante’s _Inferno_ appeared in 1782.


End file.
